Mr Property PROPERTY
William Beaver House is the first new from-the-ground-up luxury residential tower in the financial district near Wall Street. It may also be the first to be sold by an anthropomorphic beaver. The open lobby at William Beaver House creates a hotel-like environment
lished Balazs’ reputation as one
What is common to every
under way today on a New York
of the industry’s most admired
Balazs property, at least, is a
Standard in the Meatpacking
tastemakers. Rupert Murdoch
sense of whimsy and overt sexi-
District, a neighborhood distin-
and Calvin Klein both lived in
ness. In one hotel you will find
guished in part by an abandoned
the hotel for extended periods.
showers with glass on all sides
and elevated freight railway
Settle in its lobby still today,
visible to the bedroom. Another
called the Hi-Line that the city
with its understated living room-
has bathrooms complete with a
has promised to grass over and
library atmosphere, and you will
large sculpture of a foot in black
turn into a kind of park in the
surely spy if not film stars (this
foam rubber. Yet Balazs rarely
sky. The Hi-Line will run directly
is where Russell Crowe got into
repeats himself. He strives, he
through the hotel lobby.
trouble hurling a telephone at
says, to imbue each project with
“One of the few luxuries left
a front-desk employee) then at
something that speaks either to
is travel,” he explains. “And the
least leaders of the fashion and
the locale or to the history of
aspect of travel that is luxurious is
entertainment worlds.
the building itself, if it isn’t new.
not the movement, but the being
Like Ian Schrager, who we
What seems like a gimmick in
there. So I think that one of the
can blame for spawning the
the Standard Hotel on Sunset
things that most matters and will
awful “Boutique Hotel” moniker
in West Hollywood – a scant-
matter increasingly is that when
after his serial collaborations
ily clad model prone in a vitrine
you are in some place you actu-
with the minimalist-chic French
behind the front desk – is actu-
ally feel like you are there, that
designer Philippe Starck, Balazs
ally meant to pay homage to a
the ‘there’ is very different from
creates hotels that are everything
time when the neighborhood
whence you came. When you’re
the chain hotels – the Hyatts and
was the territory of street-walk-
in London, you should feel like
Marriotts – are not.
ers and voyeurs. Construction is
you’re in London. That unleashes
100 Thousand Club
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